


subject 18

by halcyonskies



Series: 100Themes: Dean/Cas [69]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Guard Dean, Human Experimentation, Implied experimentation, Mutant Castiel, dr. sharpe is alastair, it isn't mentioned but it's definitely him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 00:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5144195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyonskies/pseuds/halcyonskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He almost wishes they could go back to when this was all just a boring, run-of-the-mill gig.</p>
            </blockquote>





	subject 18

**Author's Note:**

> 100Themes Challenge - #55: Mutation

Dean didn’t really know what they did in this place. Like the majority of his coworkers, he didn’t really care, either. As far as he was concerned, whatever was going on was more than worth the sizeable paycheck he received on the 23rd of each month.

He was a security guard, of sorts. He’d only been here for a couple months, and in all that time he’d never had to do more than patrol his section of the building. There’d been no break-ins or break-outs, no breach of security at all, and if Dean were to describe this job in any way aside from lucrative, he would say it was kind of _boring._ People on both sides of the fence talked about this place, but it seemed it was nowhere near as interesting as they made it sound.

Well, getting paid for doing next to nothing was _not_ something to complain about.

_“Winchester!”_

Dean cursed under his breath, recognizing the nasally tones of one of his least favorite superiors. “Yes, Dr. Sharpe?”

_“We’ve got a_ situation _in the western corridors_. _Get your ass over there_ _and_ contain _it, please.”_

“Yessir.” Dean tucked his radio away and spun around. It’d figure he’d be in the spiderweb of eastern corridors when he got a call like that. He’d never have gotten this job if he’d been unfit, but sprinting the length of both the eastern and most of the western corridors before he finally heard something was almost enough to make him consider expanding his workout routine.

He pulled his tranq gun as soon as he saw the hulking shape shuffling down the hallway. Most of the overhead lights had been fried, casting everything in the sort of half-light that did nothing for Dean’s aim. One of the fluorescents directly above _whatever it was_ flickered, and for a split second Dean saw _wings._

What?

“Stop!” Dean shouted. There was a low moan of sound, and then the thing turned around.

It was a man – or, _mostly_ a man. Dean’s brain struggled to understand just what it was he was looking at. The otherworldly features were what he picked out first, so obvious that the brown hair and tan skin didn’t even register. The man’s eyes _glowed_ – it was like looking into one of those halogen bulbs, so bright Dean couldn’t stare into his face for more than a couple seconds. Even more shocking than the eyes, though, were the wings sprouting from the man’s back – two huge, awkward things bursting with dark feathers.

“What the fuck,” he breathed, completely forgetting himself for a moment. That was all it took for the man to make his move, opening his mouth in a screech that seared Dean’s ears and jerking forward into a run. Immediately Dean startled back into action, raising his gun, finger only barely trembling on the trigger.

“Stop or I will fucking shoot your ass!” Dean took pride in the fact that there was none of his nerves in his voice. To his infinite surprise, the man-thing stopped. Only about ten feet away and the guy stopped.

The halogen eyes dimmed, slightly. Behind the glow, they were an astonishingly intense shade of blue. “Please,” the man-thing gasped.

“Wherever you came from, buddy, you gotta go back.”

_“Please,”_ the man-thing said again, so desperately it sent a chill down Dean’s spine. He’d only ever heard people sound _that_ afraid when something unspeakably terrible was about to happen to them. “Please, _please,_ don’t let them have me again.”

Discomfort was instant and overwhelming, sloughing thick and murky over his body until his skin prickled with it. All of a sudden, the question of just _what the hell_ was going on in this place entered into Dean’s head, way more than a passing curiosity this time. He shifted on his feet, grip on his gun going sweaty. Unreliable.

“I could kill you right now,” the winged-man snarled, tactics changed so quick Dean’s head wanted to spin. “I could break every bone in your body and it wouldn’t even be a challenge.”

Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat. “If you were gonna do all that, you would’ve already,” he said, infinitely more confidently than he felt, like he actually knew anything at all about whatever was in front of him.

Blue eyes flashed, going halogen-bright again before dimming completely. The body in front of him slumped, like a stringless puppet, knees meeting tiled floor and hands coming up to cover the guy’s face. The creature _wept,_ huge, gulping sobs that echoed up and down the corridor like the wail of a ghoul. The wings came up around his body, shielding him from Dean’s view behind a curtain of black-brown feathers.

This was terrifying, wasn’t it? Like, pants-shittingly scary? There was a _man-thing with wings_ that was talking about _killing him_ right in front of Dean, something that Dean had never even imagined existed, let alone seen. And though fear was still very present, all Dean could manage to feel was that he had somehow messed up. That mortifying, shameful sensation of having acted like an asshole washed over him, and it was so surreal all he could do was stare.

“I can’t even ask you to just kill me,” the winged-man cried, words almost lost behind the tears. “They don’t give you guns with bullets. They want us _contained,_ not killed.”

Everything was only getting more bizarre by the moment, so Dean figured it was best just to fling himself into this whole thing feet first.

“Who are you? Jesus, _what_ are you?”

The man-thing’s face emerged from the feathers at that, tear-streaked and pale. “I don’t know what I am, anymore. This is all I’ve ever been. The doctors call me Subject 18; I don’t have any other name.”

“I – I figured they were doing . . . you know, experiments,” Dean admitted. “I just always assumed it was on animals.”

Subject 18 scoffed, wet and grating around his hitching breath. “I’m sure they think of us as animals, so you shouldn’t feel too guilty, Dean.”

Fingers squeezing around the tranq gun – he’d hardly even realized he was still pointing it – Dean hissed, “How’d you know my name?”

“That’s what the tag on your shirt says.”

It did, but Subject 18 should be way too far back to see that. _Heightened eyesight,_ Dean added to the list of other oddities surrounding the man-thing – the _experiment,_ holy God. They were _experimenting_ on people in here.

His radio crackled to life at his shoulder. _“Winchester! Did you contain the_ situation _yet?”_

Suddenly, the continued emphasis on words like _situation_ made perfect, sickening sense.

Dean didn’t know what the hell to say. He stared back at Subject 18 – Christ, the guy didn’t even have a real _name_ – eyes wide. Blue eyes gazed back, wet and sad and resigned, like the creature had done this a hundred times before and already knew exactly how this would go. Like he was about to be caught again, herded back to who knew what, back to the doctors and whatever nightmarish _experiments_ they had in store.

Well, tonight had already gone completely off the rails.

“No, sir. I’m in the western corridors now, and there’s no sign of any situation.”

The man-thing’s expression – surprised, disbelieving, _grateful_ – was worth the sudden drop in temperature in the room as Dr. Sharpe’s voice came over the frequency again.

_“Then you’d better_ keep looking, _Dean.”_ Silky and dangerous, Sharpe’s voice was like a weapon all its own. _“I trust you know what will happen if you remain unsuccessful.”_

Somehow, Dean didn’t think he was talking about getting fired.

“Understood, sir.”

As soon as he’d disconnected, Dean shrugged out of his uniform shirt. It fell to the floor, badge and radio and ID clattering unceremoniously on the tile. He shoved the tranq gun in his pocket, hoping fervently that he wouldn’t have to actually use it, and stuck out a hand.

“You want out of here?”

Subject 18’s eyes hardened. “Of course I do.”

“Then you better get up, dude, and hope my breakout skills aren’t as rusty as yours.” 


End file.
